Friday, June 7, 2013

More Crisis On Multiple Earths!

WARNING: SOME COPIES OF THIS TRADE HAVE SOME FAULTY AND DUPLICATED PAGES.
CAVEAT EMPTOR!!!

I've been looking forward to Crisis on Multiple Earths Volume 6 hitting the stands for quite some time. It's been several years since DC added to the impressive trade collection which captured all the Justice League of America and Justice Society of America for our reading pleasure. These tales by the likes of Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky, Dick Dillin, Mike Friedrich, Len Wein, Elliot S Maggin, Cary Bates, George Perez, and Gerry Conway were some of the coolest comics in the history of the medium and define for me what a good superhero comic book should be. I did more than a few reviews of this impressive series a few years ago, which you can check out here.

At long last, after a few faltering steps we get the next installments. The volume was solicited finally several months ago, but was pulled when the content was changed to add the All-Star Squadron segments of the second tale. That was a good decision, but it does have some fallout, which I'll speak to momentarily.

The first storyline in this handsome trade is a trilogy featuring the still maturing artwork of phenom George Perez. In another sturdy tale from longtime JLofA scribe Gerry Conway, Perez cements his reputation as the go-to superteam artist with these issues. Perez took over the book after the untimely demise of Dick Dillin and truth told he continued the reliability and added some Bronze Age zest to the proceedings. I look forward to reading this rock-solid superhero tale from days of yore. If you like lots of exotic villains and especially giant white apes with super-sized brains, you'll adore this story.

But for me, the headliner is the five-part time-traveling tale by both Gerry Conway and Roy Thomas which spanned both the Justice League of America and the All-Star Squadron books for one scintillating summer. I was reminded of the awesome Avengers-Defenders clash when reading this sprawling tale. The artwork in the JLofA portions of this one is done by the much underrated Don Heck with inks by Romeo Tanghal, Sal Trapani, and even Heck himself. The A-SS portions of the tale are done by the muscular team of Adrian Gonzales and inker extraordinaire Jerry Ordway. This one is a keeper featuring the Golden Age menace of Per Degaton. The JLofA books feature covers by George Perez and the A-SS books get Joe Kubert artwork. It's a pretty awesome assembly of talent on these, and the totally awesome and completely malicious Crime Syndicate to boot.

On the downside though is that there are two remaining JLofA-JSofA storylines which have not yet been collected, not enough really for a full-length trade. See the covers below.

If DC will finish up this series is an open question, and how they might
do it creates curiosity too. But I'm eager to finally have all those
totally awesome crossovers in handy trade format. These are stories that were truly special in the day, tales that rose above the ordinary material which often truth told sometimes littered the stands. These tales stand the test of time.

UPDATE: In my original post, I forgot all about the final JLofA-JSofA team-up during the Detroit League era (in the midst of the Crisis itself which put an end to these classic meetings) between the team and the JSA proteges Infinity Inc. As you can see by the covers above, that oversight has been corrected. That should give us enough stories for one more trade. I hope I see it soon. Thanks for the reminder Krusty. (Cue the evil laugh.)

5 comments:

Welllllll, the annual JLA/JSA crossover did continue into the next year, in a way, with the Detroit-era JLA crossing over with Infinity Inc. (circa JLA #245). It's not a great story, in my opinion, but that could bump the page count up to make a complete book.

I've really enjoyed these stories as well. Although I don't have the complete set, I'm missing Volume 5 and the new book, I feel I've got a good handle on the JLA without having to hunt down the Archives editions or the new JLA Chronicles. I hope as well DC will finish this series off with one more book.